“You can say what a hole it (Hussey’s departure) leaves, that’s pretty obvious,” Cowan was quoted as saying by Cricket Australia’s website.

“He is a phenomenal player, he’s still playing as well as he ever has, so sure it’s going to leave a hole. But the other side is that it’s opportunity.

“It’s an opportunity for this team to move forward how they want to – be shaped not by the past, but have a real crack with a new group, shaping a new Australian cricket team. That’s exciting,” he added.

Cowan said Australia will have to feel the excitement of making a new team, otherwise things will become tough.

“That has to be exciting – if we don’t think it’s exciting then we’ve got an issue,” he said.

There are talks suggesting Cowan as a potential leader of the Australian side, but he is not reading much into it.

“I think in the Australian cricket team it’s important to have multiple leaders and not just guys who are captaincy material. It’s important we’ve seen people like Ponting and Hussey and those kind of guys set standards around training, around how the team behaves on and off the field,” Cowan said.

He added, “You need some guys to step up into those responsibilities, so it’s nice to be mentioned but I don’t think that changes anything about how I try and contribute to the group.”